Baowu leads coalition on low-carb steelmaking

Shanghai-based steel producer Baowu Group says a coalition called the Global Low-Carbon Metallurgical Innovation Alliance (GLCMI) is now in place to help advance “the engineering and industrialization of low-carbon technologies” in the steel industry.

Baowu says GLCMI has been “jointly established by 62 companies, universities and scientific research institutions from 15 countries around the world.” Steel producers include those with largely (though not entirely) blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace capacity, including Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, Germany-based ThyssenKrupp and India-based Tata Steel.

Also members of the coalition are iron ore miners and marketers, including London-based Rio Tinto, Brazil-based Vale S.A. and Australia-based Fortescue Metals Group (FMG). Italy-based steelmaking technology vendor Danieli Group also is part of GLCMI.

States Baowu in an announcement on its website, “The alliance positions itself as a technology exchange platform in the field of low-carbon metallurgical innovation to gather R&D resources of the global steel industry [to] collaborate in the development of basic as well as forward-looking low-carbon metallurgical technology, with the goal of promoting technology cooperation, exchange and transformation, advancing the engineering and industrialization of low-carbon technologies, forming a low-carbon value innovation chain and promoting the low-carbon transformation in the steel industry.”

Continues Baowu, “Members of the alliance will follow the principles of openness, vision sharing and intellectual property protection, actively respond to climate change, and work together for the future of the steel industry and for the benefit of mankind.”

The November announcement by Baowu does not specifically mention the role of ferrous scrap or metals recycling as a low-carbon aspect on which GLCMI will focus attention.